Big content with little power



    Content marketing is interesting not only for large brands, but also for small businesses. It seems that this tool can be used without large budgets or even in the home. After all, many still succeed. But how do they do it?
    How to do content marketing if the budget is limited? Let's try to figure it out.

    Typically, content marketing, like advertising strategies, requires significant budgets, but sometimes you may find yourself in a situation where the market, competitors and your own resources will give you a chance to try and succeed.
    A little luck, creativity, good “arrogance” - and they talk about you without extra costs.

    Strategy and analytics


    A content marketing strategy is not something you can opt out of when working with a small budget. But this is something that you can try to build on your own. It takes time, perseverance, some analytical skills. How to make a strategy on your own? There are already many detailed guides from the series “Content Marketing Strategy: Step-by-Step Instructions” on the Internet.

    What are your short and long term goals? What steps should you take to achieve these goals? How will each channel help you get there, and what kind of content interaction will be at each stage for synergy? How do you measure the effectiveness of content along this path, and which decisions do you make in case of strategy correction, with some metric indicators?

    Unlike big brands, you don’t have to keep track of all metrics and quality metrics for your content. You will immediately see which topics and tools work and which do not, if you select only the main indicators. On them you are adjusting the strategy. Focus on metrics for content performance and engagement.

    If you post content on your own site, you will find this report template useful in Google Analytics. In addition to the overall picture of attendance, you will see the conversion by key queries, sources of visits, social networks and adjust posts topics in time.



    To analyze interaction with content, use this template .



    Here are all the performance indicators of the posts that you need: bounce rate, time spent on the page, conversion cost. These metrics measure the interest in your content and its value.

    Also, follow the sources of conversions to your publications and conversions from them to the desired forms or links. Just by analyzing sources and conversions, you will already receive feedback on the effectiveness of your content and see what happens in the sales funnel, thanks to content marketing.

    Free tools


    There are quite a few free or shareware tools for working with content, the functionality of which should be enough, at least to start work in content marketing, and sometimes for full work within the company - a representative of small and medium-sized businesses.

    • Google for analytics, work automation, receiving leads, multi-user work with documents and more.
    • MailChimp and other services for newsletters, automated series of letters, layout templates. Starting tariffs, as a rule, are sufficient not only for tests, but also full-time work the first time.
    • Canva and its counterparts are a great alternative to graphic programs and the position of designer in your limited, I remind you, budget of a content marketing campaign.
    • Hootsuite is a social media management combine.
    • WordPress is a blogging platform with so many features and plugins that you can create anything you want.

    There are also solutions for teamwork, CRM-systems and "kanbans", spell checking, translations, searching and selecting illustrations, creating and editing videos , and much more.

    All this is easily found on the Internet, God bless all these people who give us the opportunity to create content for free!

    As the budget increases, you can expand the use of platforms, switch to paid subscriptions, integrate new tools.

    Relevance


    When you are limited in budgets, you should not spray on all possible topics of publications and content formats. Thanks to analytics, you can select the most “working” formats, and the strategy and analysis of the target audience will tell the topics.

    However, there is universal advice on what to write to everyone who wants to benefit their customers. Write answers to their problems and questions. Highlight the “pains” of customers at different stages of interaction with your product or service and give a detailed guide. This is the first thing they expect from you. Analyze customer questions that they ask support services in online chats, letters and calls to your company, study search queries on the site and on the Internet. And just give a detailed, detailed, detailed answer. Such an answer, for which you want to buy everything from you!

    When you try to compete with any other brand in your niche for the precious time of your target audience, the content should be extremely useful.

    Outsourcing


    You will not believe it, but it is often much cheaper to hire an intelligent team on the side than to pay authors in the state. When you cannot afford your own team, outsourcing is a great option. When you outsource video production, content writing, social networks, you do not just save. Outsourcing gives you access to a dedicated team of professionals.

    Unfortunately, we cannot give advice - look for authors in your company. Too often we are contacted after these attempts. Your marketer, PR manager and even secretary are busy with their main work (even if it seems to you that they are not busy, they are convinced of this) and are simply not motivated to write any articles without an extra bid, let alone track their effectiveness.

    If you see the strength in you to do all this, once again return to the block on strategy and analytics and ask only two questions:

    1. Do I need it?
    2. How much is enough for me?

    Answers must be honest. Given that content marketing is a long story, at least a few months, and ideally a permanent one.

    ***

    Seth Godin, famous in wide marketing circles, once said “Content marketing is the only marketing that we have left.” It is unlikely that he addressed those companies that do not have large budgets, but the phrase fits perfectly with the topic of publication.
    If you are limited in resources, try working with content, test different channels, “write the way” to the heart of the client.

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